I bought the puffin in order to get a long time desire for the sea out of my system. I purposely bought the puffin because it is a Dickerson center cockpit ketch, and built of wood. A boat with enough room for 4 or more crew, and separate cabins. 

It also is what I consider local, as it was built in Trapp Maryland on the Chesapeake bay, and I am into spending money locally, banking locally, eating food that is local to the place where you live, growing a local garden, voting locally as all politics are local!!!

In my mind the more you do locally the better off you are and when you are better off you are helping others become better off just by example.

So, the puffin will be home to myself and the crew while she is on the sea cruising each winter for the next 4 years. I intend for the experience to be local to where ever the puffin is so market places in the sea ports along the way is where the fresh fruit and vegetables are but I will also be looking for local gardners selling their own products at farmers markets and coastal roadsides along the trip. There is not a lot of room to store food aboard and maybe rice and beans or the like will find a place but food stored in throw away containers are a pain in the butt when they are empty and in the way.

Year one is not getting to a start like I had invisioned, not to say in the least. So the plan for year one is “one of change” and I just have this feeling that every year will unfold to become “another one of change” Constant never ending change, that is the nature of the sea, in fact it is the nature of the entire universe. Change is what seeds do well and plants do well and fruits do well and children do well and politics do well the list goes on and on.

All my life all I have ever known is change and I think that is why I like things local. When you are local you are forced to “be here now” and when you are here now you can be honest “radically honest” with your self and every one else around you at the moment. Locally people say nothing ever changes here. I’ve noticed that when I am living local things tend to remain the same for longer periods of time. I have to agree when someone says to me “your farm looks the same as I remember it looking before you bought it!

With change in mind the plan as it is now in to relaunch the puffin and head south along the ICW under the power of the “iron genny”. since it is winter the departure date is subject to “great change” due to the weather but we always get a warm thaw in January around here and that is the target date unspecified.

It takes about 15 days to get to Florida on the “iron genny” I am just guessing but if you move quickly with diligence you could cover 60 miles per day. That is pushing it and at that pace there are no room for errors but the winter weather will ultimately be the dictator. So if that works out 15 x 60 =900 miles or somewhere south of Saint Augustine is where we will be. At least it will be sort of warm, by then, and we can slow down and start relaxing and sailing in and out of the ocean and on south to the keys. Getting there by Feb. 1 st. or so.

Find a marina and check in for a month regrouping and debriefing. Taking an inventory of what there is to do during Feb. when the puffin will be going out, where?, for how long?, who will be crew?, this will be a time when anyone wanting to sail can join the ship and learn the crew and vise versa, as well  as learn the boat and the “ways” of the puffin. Find a birth become part of the plan and start sailing.

Then after a crew is comfortable and there are enough but not to many. A sail down to the islands of the carribean during March will become part of the plan. It most likely will follow the Mexican coast to Belize stoping in the seaport’s there and in Guatamala’s rio dulce. Then a crossing and the journey north by Jamaica and maybe around to the atlantic and up by Pureto Rico. This scenario is dependant on the time it takes and the weather as I have to be back in a V.A. hospital for a series of appointments starting April 24 and going on through May into June, and other commitments in Luray starting May 1st. So I have to start back by the last week in March and be in Florida and heading north by April 1st.

Than concludes year one.,. … .,.

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